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Baeder Drives
BAEDER DRIVES Baeder Drives are named for the man, Hans Baeder, who developed the theoretical underpinnings that allowed for faster-than-light travel. Baeder Drives are large cylindrical vessels which are capable of jumping from one point to another point, either traveling the intervening space too quickly to be seen, generating a worm-hole and passing through it, or by moving through another dimension. As an alternate explanation, young students are told that ships stand still and move the universe around them. What is known beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the WLN will readily kill in order to keep it's most important secret. A FTL jump requires a tremendous energy expenditure; enough that after each jump, a Baeder Drive's multiple fusion cores must be restarted though precise measurements are top secret/'eyes only'. Any ship near a Drive or docked with it when it powers up to jump with active sensors is at best banned from every using a Drive again and, at worst, fried with a power surge and then decoupled from the Drive (if attached) or attacked with the Drive's weapon systems. COST AND MANUFACTURE Modern Baeder Drives are expensive in time and material, taking ten to fifteen years to complete, usually at a cost well over one trillion credits. The expense involved makes ownership of Baeder Drives a serious business. PHYSICAL SIZE Baeder-units are massive and when in orbit, they are visible with the naked eye (even with Earth's hazy, polluted atmosphere). The actual data is the most highly classified secret in the solar system, allowing the World League of Nations to maintain its power via the monopoly on faster-than-light travel, but estimates are that a Baeder Drive ship is 750,000-1,000,000 tons, roughly 10-12 times the size of an old-navy nuclear supercarrier. Most of the tonnage is the drive unit itself rather than fuel or crew space. It is theorized that, just like with performance, Moore's Computing Law will apply to Baeder Drive size. Scientists are convinced that within a century or two, all ships will be outfitted with Baeder Drives, allowing for a radical change in the politics and economics of the solar system. COMPLEMENT A Baeder Drive ship is almost fully automated and computerized. With training, a ship can be operated by four crewmen. Given the value of the ships, most are given redundant staffing and have a complement of 10-12 which is supported by a large but undisclosed number of military security personnel. Some of the hard points on a Drive are reserved for WLN military vessels which are ready to defend the Drive if it is attacked, and to enforce the rules about attempting to gain information about the Drive and its function. On military-use Baeder Drive ships, space marines are housed with the crew. For civilian-use Baeder ships, the crew areas are much smaller, so that military personnel are in attached pods rather than imbedded with the ship crew. BAEDER DRIVE RULES Under the auspices of the World League of Nations, Baeder Drives may not be targeted during space combats, nor may their construction sites be attacked in any way that could possibly damage a Drive's construction. It is illegal to initiate combat within 25km of a Drive Ship or within the first five minutes after declamping from the Drive Ship. These rules are enforced immediately and without recourse by the full force of the WLN military. LATER CODICLE (once private ships have been constructed): If a Baeder Drive is left without a defending force, it is considered 'spoils of war' and is captured with its crew intact. Baeder crews give their loyalty to their ship above all else. PERFORMANCE The theoretical limits of Baeder Drive performance are unknown though from the moment of the first Baeder Drive's test flight to current day, the technology involved has followed a curve similar to Moore's Law of Computing Power though in this case, Baeder Drive power/speed is doubling every twenty-five years rather than every decade. USAGE/DOCKING Since the Baeder Drive ship generates a warp field around its hull, only objects or ships in direct contact with the hull can move faster than light-speed. This means the Drive Ship functions like a tow truck, dragging normal space ships with it to the destination. If there's an advantage to the sheer size of a Baeder Drive ship, it is that it has the surface area for numerous hard points (to secure space vessels for the trip). In general, a Drive ship has one docking area for every 10-20,000 tons of its own size (so that most Drive ships can transport up to 100 small non-FTL craft). Because of safety protocol, docking is limited to ten ships at a time with the process requiring thirty minutes (if handled by computer) or ninety minutes if done manually. Undocking is much faster, taking less than a minute though most times, the Drive ship crew will stagger ship releases to prevent collisions. WLN PLANS The WLN has built drive ships with two purposes in mind to this point. The first is military use, the second is civilian/commercial, as the WLN understands that their current monopoly on FTL travel will not last (WLN experts suggest the monopoly has fifty more years to run). Military-oriented ships will continue to provide a political presence throughout the system 'showing the flag' while the commercial-oriented ships will be expanded to maximize docking points for maximum revenue collection. The other advantage of the military-style drive ships is that with their advanced sensor suites, they are ideal for out-system exploration and for the establishment of military outposts.